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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Peace and Unquiet: The Failure of Transitional Justice Mechanisms in Sierra Leone Franssen, Rebecca Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 Peace and Unquiet: The Failure of Transitional Justice Mechanisms in Sierra Leone Rebecca Franssen PhD Law 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the people who contributed to the creation and completion of this thesis. I would like to particularly thank the following people: The Central Research Fund and the International State Crime Initiative for making the fieldwork for this study possible. My colleagues and friends in Freetown, Kenema, Koidu, Calaba and Waterloo, who made my time in Sierra Leone some of the most full and educational days of my life. Special thanks to Seea, Ahmed, Phil, Noelle, Frank, Asahi, James, Doris, Jalloh, and Farah. Special thanks also to Mummy K who housed me on my first visit to Sierra Leone and to the wonderful Kamara family who made me feel at home on Boyle Lane. Special thanks also to Gavin at West African Medical Missions who provided accommodation for my second fieldtrip free of charge. I couldn’t have done it without all of you. The law school, in particular Annette Lee and my colleagues in the writing up room at Somerset House, who are always ready to pick me up with some well timed PhD humour. Carrie, Mark, Maris and Barak, who have reminded me that there is a life outside of - 1.25. Special thanks to Carrie and Mark for being my editors, my sounding boards and my company on late -1.25 nights. My siblings, Jenn, Rach, Dave and their eight beautiful children, Molly, Jack, Audrey, Orlagh, Eamonn, Summer, Will and Tommy, all of whom have reminded me that there is a home outside of London. Special thanks to my parents, MaryAnn and Bill Franssen, who have provided me with unlimited love and support, and who have always pushed me to pursue my dreams to the best of my ability. Finally and most importantly, thank you to my supervisor Professor Penny Green. This thesis would not have been possible without her continued support, inspiration and not a little whip cracking. I will be forever grateful. 2 Abstract This thesis uses Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice and participation as a tool of critical analysis to critique transitional justice initiatives in Sierra Leone. The decade long civil war in Sierra Leone was one marked by some of the most violent and heinous violations of human rights in the twentieth century. Since the end of the conflict the nation has been regularly highlighted for endemic poverty and unemployment. In Fraser’s theoretical framework of justice, these phenomena are not mutually exclusive; the endemic poverty – or injustice of maldistribution – is directly related to, and mutually supporting of, violent outbreaks and cultural segregations – or the injustice of misrecognition. Regardless, or perhaps because of, the establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a truth and reconciliation commission and numerous grassroots development projects, both misrecognition and maldistribution remain prominent in Sierra Leonean society. This thesis argues that institutions of transitional justice in Sierra Leone have failed to engage with or understand root causes of civil strife or hostilities and as such have led to the development of inappropriate measures for resolving conflict in Sierra Leone. As a result the current research argues, mechanisms of transitional justice in their capacity as justice mechanisms, serve to re-establish and further entrench injustices that initially led to the civil conflict. As a means of overcoming this cycle of injustice, this thesis discusses the necessity of situating transitional justice mechanisms locally, engaging comprehensively with local perspectives of both the injustice suffered and the justice mechanisms implemented. The voice of local populations must be heard and materially realized if the judicial endeavours that will shape their future lives are to be relevant and binding. 3 Table of Contents Maps .................................................................................................................................. 5 Acronyms .......................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: The Trials and Tribulations of Putting Justice on Trial: Undertaking Fieldwork in Sierra Leone ............................................................................................... 26 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework: Nancy Fraser, Transitional Justice and the Creation of Dichotomy .................................................................................................................. 54 Chapter 4: Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone and the Overlap of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Special Court for Sierra Leone ................................... 98 Chapter 5: International Criminal Tribunals and the Special Court for Sierra Leone .. 124 Chapter 6: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone ....................... 156 Chapter 7: Violent Poverty ........................................................................................... 204 Chapter 8: Conclusion ................................................................................................... 240 Annex A: List of Interviews .......................................................................................... 253 Annex B: Semi-Structured Interview Questions ........................................................... 257 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 258 4 Maps Map obtained from Google Maps. Map obtained from Google Earth. 5 Acronyms ACC Anti-Corruption Commission AFRC Armed Forces Revolutionary Council AMNet Advocacy Movement Network APC All People’s Congress CDF Civil Defence Force CGG Campaign for Good Governance FBC Forah Bay College FGM Female Genital Mutilation HRW Human Rights Watch ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia IMF International Monetary Fund iNGO International Non-Governmental Organization KOCEPO Knowledge to Community Empowerment Organization LAWYERS Legal Access for Women Yearning for Equal Rights and Social Justice MRD Movement for the Restoration of Democracy NGO Non-Governmental Organization NMJD Network Movement for Justice and Democracy NPRC National Provisional Ruling Council OTP Office of the Prosecutor RBD Rights Based Development RUF Revolutionary United Front SAP Structural Adjustment Program SBU Small Boy Unit SCSL Special Court for Sierra Leone SLA Sierra Leone Army SLAJ Sierra Leone Association of Journalists SLPP Sierra Leone People’s Party SSD Special Security Division (AKA Siaka Stevens’ Dogs) TRC Truth and Reconciliations Commission UN United Nations UNAMSIL United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone UNIPSIL United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone WANEP West African Network for Peacebuilding 6 Peace and Unquiet: The Failure of Transitional Justice Mechanisms in Sierra Leone Chapter 1: Introduction On January 18, 2002 the Sierra Leonean civil war was declared officially over (Kabbah, 2002). For more than a decade Sierra Leone had been plagued by a civil war which had come at the cost of at least 75,000 lives, the displacement of more than half of its 5 million population, and countless cases of mutilation, amputation and rape (Hoffman, 2004). Moreover, the physical and structural damage to the country has never been estimated, but the conflict was regularly highlighted for its destruction of homes, buildings and villages. The destruction of a cache weapons at Lungi in 2002 was meant to mark the “symbolic conclusion of the disarmament process and an historic expression of deep sense of national triumph” (Kabbah, 2002).1 While January 18, 2002 is highlighted for being the end of the conflict, it also represents the beginning of this thesis. Since the end of the civil war, Sierra Leone has been host to both an international criminal tribunal – the Special Court for